it ended up being jpmorgan, you think what is behind that, how much money did it cost and buy the airtime for it and what's the motive? >> listen, it's a little shall matsy, but i thought it was a great commercial. i had a tear in my eye, maybe it was from the onions -- >> oh, brian. >> some active duty service men from the navy and army. thanks. >> it was great having you here, brian. that's it for us on "squawk on the street." at noontime, a very special edition of "closing bell" gets under way. have a great day. it is a very special edition of "closing bell." welcome, everybody, to black friday. i'm bill griffeth. >> and i'm mandy drury, standing if for maria bartiromo. if peopler turn out in force to get big bargains.

it's not just people in stores buying. investors seem to be buying. >> this is the first black friday rally on friday in four years. this is the last hour of trading right now. we're on a half-day schedule because of the how days, so if you have any trades to get in before the closing bell today, this is the hour to do that. it's been a really mode from the get-go. we're off the highs right now right now we're 102 at 12,939. we were knocking on 13,000's door earlier, pulling back from that right now. the nasdaq is up a person or 31 points, and the s&p at this hour is up 11 points, almost a percent at 1402. a shortened trading day. if anyone was shorting the market today, they did take a beating. >> so why don't we take a closer look at today's move. steve liesman and rick santelli.

gentlemen, thank you for joining us. how is the american consumer? . we would have stampeded out to like walmart or something. >> see what the bargains are. that's the question, right? the consumer is certainly in better shape than he or she was one year ago. home prices are back up, sent machine is back up. the process of separating consumers from their money is intricate. my point would be that the consumer is in decent shape to buy if the deal is right.

are you selling into this? had el's not hearty us. binds you are up ten basis points, so your safe harbors are selling off a bit. there is perceived good news. on the fiscal cliff, i can't make a comment. i don't think we have enough info. trying to tack the reform or race taxes, but if you look at the cac, for example, they've had a huge week. france was downgraded and did lose their aaa, at least from the moody's vantage point.

never before has the rally made 16 1/2% look so cheap, but that last one is an interesting story. you know, one of the things we were supposed to be potentially on this fix and bail was let's try to retire some of that paper, but investors are smart. this is the problem with these programs. they purchased it, and they're probably made the price too expensive. that looks like that's off the table as well. >> i know we have quinn back, so let me pose this question to. a lot of the rally we have seen this week is built on hope as opposed to hard facts. do you feel between now and the end of the year is that the market might react badly to any bad news? >> i think so. i think we have seen a rally that just came from an oversold, you know, very, very sharp decline. we had the qe-3 sell-off, the

sell-off after the election. we've gotten half of that back. s? an opportunity, if you were freaking out last week, going my gosh, i don't want to be long, i don't want to be invested going into the end of the year, you're now getting the opportunity. so investors at home. if you feel yourself just as you said, getting filled with hope, i hope this continues, i hope this rally goes on, that's not sound investing. this is an opportunity to take some things off the table. the turkey gods are smiling on you. >> what would you take off the table? i think the tide is going to rise all boats or sink all ships. so, yeah, if you've got longer term gains and want to capitalize on that tax advantage now, that's fine.

if you stay invested in this environment, you're betting on congress. i mean, you're not betting on the market, you're betting on congress. and they don't have a very good track record here, so i think from now until the end of the year -- >> i don't know, i think they have a track record of exploring all the other possibilities and finally doing the right thing. i think -- >> are you talking about our congress? >> yeah. they'll mess around for as long as they possibly can and possibly pass a fiscal cliff relief bill or something lining those lines at the final hour. >> do you think it goes on, that it's a long term solution? my personal solution is they find a band-aid that may give us the qe-3 type relief. >> but the question is what your long-term outlook is. if you're betting against u.s. growth, betting against -- or betting there will be a huge issues in the coming years on

these -- on the deficit issue, you may want to keep it off the table. there's a third area there. i don't talk to anybody, steve or our guest, who doesn't think the u.s. can easily ramp up growth. the real discussion i don't think is the true u.s. economy. i thinkist the moguling being throw in front of it, our self-inflected issues, you know, last time around we sequestration. are we going to have sequestration 2? of course we'll put a band-aid, but we need leverage to have reform predicated to surrender on the band-aid. we've got to go, guys. i've got to go with this. we've got to move on. this is the last hour of trading, so we've got to move here. thank you for your thoughts today. steve, thank you, you're voting

on a committee of politicians. i find hope in that somehow. >> yeah. you're in the hopeful camp. >> hoping at the last moment they will do the right thing. >> was that a pig that just flew by? the market is slowly coming off the lows. >> instead the last time the markets closed in positive territory on black friday was 2008. let's see if we can do it again. we have full team coverage of where it's shaping up to be a jolly holiday season. >> our luxury or discount retailers. and walmart workers threatening to walk off the job. are these protests having a real impact, or was it a lot of noise? we'll speak to one worker just moments after he walked out the door. more black friday shopping this at woodbury common up in new york state.

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get get ready, set, shop! americans across the country are turning out in force to get what they hope are some of the best retail deals deals of the year. people are still putting in the time at the stores. >> including our team that are out there around the country. courtney reagan is in dayton, ohio, jane wells at a best buy in canoga park, california. what's the traffic look like this? >> that's right, bill, i sure am. it opened at midnight. a bit of at lovell, bum then at 10:00 a.m. it really started to pop. i've got speaking with aroundists, retailer, whether

it's mavs. pretty good. make not agrees the overial sales are expected. and some early aggravations, most have appeared to have pushed those frustration aside. the majority of people who got here were the full-time employees. but a very good response. >> they were planned leading up to -- but walmart ceo says that

actually only 26 protests occurred. many didn't even include walmart employees. and in fact he set -- they missed that scheduled shift. matt values thinks that macy's is the clear winner. i have to say i've seen an automatic lot of macy's backs myself. i'm happy that the leap pad 2 is very hard to find the. >> they won't get any more in? >> they will, but probably not day is the probably. so the inventory they probably out. >> courtney reagan, thank. hoping that holiday sales --

as we manipulationed jane wells is at a best buy outside los angeles. jane, it's no secret that best buy has seen better days. we'll have to see. certainly a huge crowd this morning, and -- excuse me, go ahead right on through. this is by far the busiest part of the whole store right now, the exuder and tablet. lots of the hb laptops on sale, but in the last five minutes, i have seen three i pads go versus one samsung galaxy, but i want to show you a video when the doors opened here this morning. they had about 1,000 people lined up outside. especially after last year there was a pepper spraying incident.

but mostly the police were as a deterrent. what a party popper out there. doesn't this look like a blast? it feels un-american. thou shalt shop today. let's check in on how the shoppingthey're shopping in

shifts. now we have the daytime shift start, and the numbers seem to keep growing. already the stores in this mall were up 6% at the end of october, so they believe that will only increase here. people are actually filling bags, they say they're finding bargains, so obviously that's great news, not only for them, about you for the retailers who counseled on this day so much. more than -- more than 50020 shops, so the selection here, if you can't find it here, you probably don't need it or won't be able to find it. so far things have been going well. the other good news is it seems across the nation that this black friday has started without any incident, any real injury. of course there's countless cases of shop are fatigue going on. >> mall of america on black friday, that is the thick of it right there.

with the economy so uncertain because of the fiscal cliff will it be the discounter or the luxury retailer? >> that is the question we are asking our two guests. eddie roomer from key bank capital markets and eric vito. gentlemen, great to have you on the show today. eric, how do i play black friday and the future holiday season? >> if you look at it this is a bargain-driven season. i think the people taking advantages are the players with the best discounts. they did take advantage of lower raw material costs to lower pricing here. when you look at this, you get aggress erv, names like aeropostal and a company like new york and coach, spending two years on figuring out how to discount right.

>> ed, how do the lux injure are retailers do? >> clearly this is the morning for the value price retailers action though we saw tremendous traffic at nordstrom. frankly the store was jammed. we thinks companies like nordstrom are well positioned. >> who is not well positioned. >> it kind of levels of expectations here. retailing world has to prices here by look who doesn't have that right now, some of the neighbors are like an express, which is more aggressive. that's a warning sign here you should not be seeing that. >> ed, you're watching not just today, but this weekend, which i feel is a better barometer of how the shopping season will go. who do you expect to do well, and who are you looking to be weak in season? >> one company we saul with good follow-through into this morning was abercrombie & fitch.

one of the things they do is reduce the levels of promotion through the weekend. it will be important to watch that traffic levels stay strong. i think on the flip sid aeropostal had very heavy discounting, so it seems like some of their product isn't working for them. >> we always talk about heavy discounting around this time of the year, but i'm wondering is it even heavier? >> right now what you're seeing is pretty much in line with last year, we've seen retailers hold the line on pricing and we've seen that throughout the year, that it's outpaced the cpa so far they have done a good job of offering discounts, but not deeper than -- if they could do that, they could drive up side. >> gentlemen, good tees you both. thank you for your thoughts. we have about 40 minutes to go until the bell is ringing. today the bell is going to read at 1:00 p.m., a shortened day

today, so you can get out and enjoy black friday the at this stage we're holding the rally, up by about 100 points on the dow. >> we're focusing onretail, but the index hag red-hot this year. but can retail keep ringing up big sales for your portfolio, as we wind down? we'll look at the charts coming up. >> also, walmart workers across the country are threatening to walk out in protest over working holidays and low wages, but are enough workers hitting the street to make a difference? we'll speak to one worker who could be risking his job by walking off the job. americans are always ready to work hard for a better future.

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the reason why it's up, is a it's yet another company that's declaring a special cash different ahead of the fiscal cliff. there's possible tax raises on capital gains next year. you can see that investors are excited about that. that stock up 13.5 person. >> i expect to hear those two words quite a lot between now and the end of the year. tech stocks are a big force

behind black friday seema mody has more. >> absolutely nasdaq is on track to have the first best and best five -- we're seeing research in motion, the best performs stock on the back of that bullish analyst note we've been talking about all day. hewlett-packa hewlett-packard, shares hit a ten-year low. related to autonomy. apple also up today, set to snap an eight-week losing streak, the longest since the dot-com bubble streak. and speaking of apple, in lieu of black friday, the tablet wars are definitely heating up. >> you would think so. seem that, thank very much. before shoppers were flocking to the mall, frayeder were flocking to the retail

stock themselves. so will retails continue toss the better play and outperform the s&p? that's what we're talking about today. on the technical say is bell point 589 tiffs, on the fundamentals sigh is stephen wei weiss. jeff, would you real by retail or the broader market? >> hopefully i concede and tack some of the thunder away from steve. going forward, on a short-term basis. we're looking between the next month at three months that the ss.p.y. is the better play. so if you look -- we had a nice down move after topping off in october. we had a really good sell-off after the election, then we bottomed, right? now we haven't broken through the 20-day moving average since probably october 19th. we did that today decisively.

what we're looking for, a nice move to the back size of the trend line, a long-term trend line that broke in october, between 147 and 148. if you look at the numbers, that's a 4% to 6% gain, and we don't see that happening in the xrt. >> here's why i look at it differently. one of the reasons why the xrt retail has outperformed the general market this year is because it's primarily a u.s. play. so you don't have to worry so much about what's going on in europe and china, even though you do have some stocks like coach. if the market's going to go higher, retail will go higher, housing is improving, so that money will spill boo retail as well. basketly you split between the s&p and the radio tail. it doesn't have material stocks or old-line technology stocks that are doing well today and no

volume, but i can pick a sector that i think is going to do very very well, it's diversified, so i like retail better than the now, again this trade is between one and three months, but here's some of mire concerns going forward. you had the largest retailer you have analysts dropping the whole retail sector of sales from 4.5% to 2%. >> but that's perfect. >> you've said expectations so low then. now you can surprise them to the up side as we've seen with walmart. macy's you could add that, too. they lowered expectations when they reported. i like the stock, i think it's the best retailer out there. >> steve, you know better as i do. we see that happening in the xrt over the next couple months. >> we've seen the s&p do pretty well today also, so --

>> i like this. we had the technical guy talking fundamentals today on "talking numbers." >> sorry about that, bill. >> thank you for joining us today. heading toward the close, just the reminder, this is the last half hour of trading on had holiday shortened friday. the market -- the dow off the highs up 107 points. >> walmart reporting its best-ever plaque friday. will walmart protests across the country overshadow that? up next we'll speak to one worker who walked off the job, and find out if he's the vocal minority? stick around. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 this morning, i'm going to trade in hong kong. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 after that, it's on to germany. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 then tonight, i'm trading 9500 miles away in japan. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 with the new global account from schwab,

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investors are in investors are in the buying mood on wall street. mary thompson is in the thick of it. >> hey there, bill. in light volume today, were seeing a nice move to the up side as you mentioned earlier off the best levels of the day, but keep in mind what we're seeing really, the trend is your friend here. we have seen the market move

higher for pretty much the past four trading sessions. today is no exception. leadinged way today, tech and material stocks. this has been a breakout sector over the last week, in fact the first up week for the sector in ten weeks. sailsforce.com and electronics and with apple's gain, it's still in correction territory, but now out of bear market territory. >> a reminder this is the last half hour of trading. >> it is, and then you can go shopping. investors are also shopping for gold. jackie deangelis is at the nymex where metals trading is coming to a close. >> that is exactly right. we saw a bit in the appreciate metals today, moving up more than 1%. a couple reince for that we had a stronger euro today action and

chatter out of greece that was supportive. last but not least, it was a short day of trade. they tell me that's a recipe to send the prices higher. a lot of traders are saying watch it for next week, because this momentum looks like the kind that can last. back over to you. >> jackie, thank you very much. walmart facing a black friday backlash from some workers. hampton pearson is outside of a walmart in maryland with the latest details. is this happening with any significant numbers? they say there's about 50 protesters involved in walkouts last night, but the story is not just about black friday shoppers, about

well-orchestrated demonstrations, hundreds of protesters supporting a leading labor union's effort on behalf of wall martz, more than a million workers for better pay and benefits. the unions and community groups say they're simply basically responding to a groundswell that's building inside among walmart employees, who are speaking out and some in fact walking off their jobs in protest. walmart downplaying the participation rates, denies charges, by the way, also of any retaliation efforts. instead they're highlighting among other things what they say are the best responses to its black friday promotions ever. 22 million customers on thanksgiving day, a record 10 million transactions between 8:00 and midnight last night. keep in mind there is still a walmart claim with the nlrb that some of the practices of the union boarding on disrupting

business practices going forward, that claim is still pending. >> hampton, i have a question. we hear anecdotally about them bussing in protesters to beef up the numbers. who are these people being bussed in, do you know? >> number one, the lead group is united commercial food workers. there's other groups supporting the afl-cio, seiu, afscme, if you will, so they're no strangers at organizing protests, getting community people, if you will. for example, the demonstration here, well a local minister leading some of his church groups. there's no aneck dote. they bussed in 250 to 300 folks. they -- we had a nice demonstration here, loud, noisy, if you will, and it was a road

show. they're moving on to other wall martz in the area. >> but the point is they're not walmart workers. is that what we're seeing? >> exactly. however, among the folks you sea demonstrating there were wall matt employees from other stores. >> okay. >> we talked to a couple of them after the demonstration was over. >> thank you very much. see you later. we go if there to california, where we talk you outside the walmart walkout there? >> greg fletcher we've already spoken to and member of the our walmart movement. he was scheduled to work yesterday and today, but instead he has decided to protest. he joins us from the walmart store in paramount, california. good to join us once again. how many workers are joining you? >> so far we have about -- a couple dozens dozen, a few dozen employees rub able to join us. several more were going to, but

because of schedules, sicknesses, life happens, but we have several, several dozen people here. >> are all people protesting walmart employees? or to the point we were making earlier, are there people from the community or people bussed in to to join you. >> by far primarily walmart associates. there are a few people like church members s. neighbors of associates, family members, that sort of thing, but by and large, it is entirely associate driven. >> the numbers we hear from walmart, greg say that maybe 50 associates themselves are participating in those around the country and the rest are bussed in unionized workers or community workers. you're not buying that, i guess? >> it's entirely not true. i'm seeing it myself on the ground floor that that is not true. the number 50 might perhaps be one store.

all right. are you pleasuring what you want to today? what exactly are you trying to say to walmart and the world by walking off your job today? >> what i'm trying to say and my fellow associates is that, you know, walmart can bully their employees, be tirr ran cal towards those who earn them their fortune, but we're going to let our customers know, our society know, walmart can be better than this, and we are going to push them to be better. >> are you disappointed you don't have a bigger turnout? do you feel therefore you're not as successful in your message that you were trying to achieve? >> i view it as successful as we have a lot of people who have -- despite the fear, the tactics that the company has used to scare the daylights out of the people, to get anyone is really a triumph in itself. we have a lot of people, customers, people who aren't

members of our organization walking out of the store and jumping into the line. >> so when you say walmart is trying to scare the daylights out of you, has your job been threatened? >> um, not directly, but several other associates, their jobs have been, yes. >> i'll ask again what i asked you last week for those not around for the first interview, you could leave your job and go somewhere else if you're so unhappy, you know? >> you know, i could. it's easy to run away from problems. i won't disagree with that, but the thing is i enjoy my job, i enjoy my co-workers. sure if i leave my momentarily -- and the people who i leave behind won't be. i see it more as trying to fix the situation. >> are you hopeful that's going to happen? >> i very believe strongly it

will. i have no doubts. >> greg, thank you very much for speaking with us. >> thanks, greg. okay. we have about 20 minutes, guys until the closing bell rings. once to reiterate, we are finishing up at 1:00 p.m. the dow is it ending the gains. as we have a gain of 1% or better for all three indices imp the bulls running wild. it's been this week. is this the start of a year-end santa claus rally? and later on, black friday app. attack, how you can use your smartphone to save big bucks. >> elvis, elvis. look, if you have copd like me, you know it can be hard to breathe, and how that feels. copd includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema. spiriva helps control my copd symptoms by keeping my airways open for 24 hours. plus, it reduces copd flare-ups. spiriva is the only once-daily

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when we got married. i had three kids. and she became the full time mother of three. it was soccer, and ballet, and cheerleading, and baseball. those years were crazy. so, as we go into this next phase, you know, a big part of it for us is that

there isn't anything on the schedule. look look at that. that would be the third largest powerball lottery. >> you piqued my interest. >> you and david both. >> you would take -- >> wait until after the show. >> wait until after the interview to go buy that ticket, david. this is shaping up to be the first time stocks finish higher on black friday than 2008.

should we make anything of that as we head into the homestretch for this year? >> david doss is with us, rich peterson, and we have our very own mary thompson still with us. >> i guess everyone wants to know whether -- >> it's cease, greece and release. okay? greece, the bond yields have dropped. it look better. >> looks like a deal announced on monday, they're saying. >> and the release is the release of the political deadlock and gridlock. it's not yet solved, but it looks like it's going to be solved. you have on top of that housing. housen looks good and china looks good. the three negatives are the three ps -- profits, production and personal income. we would use in as a trading range kind of market.

but meantime we have highlighted the sectors that are doing well. i mean, what's going on statistically? the nine of the ten sectors are showing declines, only financials are doing with a gain of about 100, first of all, if dave does win, does he cash that tick in before? >> i think we would be taking the lump sum -- >> head to australia to buy mandy's house. >> but in terms of sector, we're midway through the fourth quarter, looking for -- doing well. i think, you know, overhanging is the fiscal cliff -- >> but how hard is it?

are fundamentals being trumped? >> you want to look for companies. some of the most misprized assets are good solid different-paying qualities. i would also say gold, that one also looks mispriced. >> mary, what's the mood on the floor? some of the guys were saling they were willing to buy, but maybe for a short-term trade, because a lot of those guys are skeptical. >> i wouldn't read too much into it, again very light volume today. >> a couple good data points. the flash pmi out of china so you had some -- they do want to have concrete news come out of the washington, d.c., whether they get that greek deal, very,

very carefully to see how strong this rebound that we're seeing in housing, the recoveries we're seeing in housing. bottom line for both of you, end of the year, will we be higher or lower? >> higher buys, the economy is showing some signs of recovery, a catalyst for higher prices. >> i think you could see some downward pressure, because of people taking profits, getting the capital gains. also, as you look at profits for next year, if our number is true, mandy, if the profits will be lower next year, then you want to take some money off the table. stay with your technology, with your health care, stay with defensive stocks. >> you still like apple? >> we love apple. we think it can get back to 7350. but china, ipad, iphone, those

will be -- >> a good week this week. thank you get to the mood as well, with your candy striped tie. >> look at those numbers, two for the lottery. about ten minutes left, only a half trading day. the rally continues. >> it is indeed. we. steve cohen is in the cross hairs of federal prosecutors who are trying to turn a former employees accused of insider trading against him. the very latest information on a new weights scandal. deal or no deal? will stocks fall off a cliff if congress cannot fix our financial mess before the end of the year. a story you've heard a few things about lately. we'll have more. ♪ the holly that will be on your own front door ♪ can i help you?

i heard you guys can ship ground for less than the ups store. that's right. i've learned the only way to get a holiday deal is to camp out. you know we've been open all night. is this a trick to get my spot? [ male announcer ] break from the holiday stress. save on ground shipping at fedex office. how they'll live tomorrow. for more than 116 years, ameriprise financial has worked for their clients' futures. helping millions of americans retire on their terms. when they want. where they want. doing what they want. ameriprise. the strength of a leader in retirement planning. the heart of 10,000 advisors working with you one-to-one. together for your future. ♪

>> welcome welcome back. cnbc has learned that federal prosecutors have been trying to turn a man accused of insider trading against his former boss, that being sac capital founder steve cohen. kate kelly has the latest developments on this evolving

story. kate? >> thanks so much, bill. news today that the government tried to flip former sac trader matthew martoma against part of a case against the firm's founder steve cohen would suggest that the screws are tightening on cohen. martoma apparently refused and the tone of his lawyer's statement suggest they plan to fight hard against allegations martoma and sac benefited from insider information that was illegally obtained. and the firm has chugged along despite the specter of legal troubles for literally years now. sac is up about 10% year to date from what i'm told after turning around about 8% last year. it manages $14 billion, the majority of which is cohen or other insiders and their own capital, and it employs about 1,000 people. that last fact could be a help in defending itself from some of the harshest government charges. in this climate it is hard to see prosecutors warranting to bring down a whole business. yet, there are a half dozen former sac employees now entangled in insider trading charges in some way, and martoma

is only the latest. as prosecutors try to go after cohen who insists he has behaved appropriately, i'm told to keep an eye on an sac trading manager named michael steinberg. he's a close cleefg cohese coll and has already been named an unindicted co-conspirator. if he flips on cohen, i'm told it could be problematic for cohen in the future. >> thinking about the broader context here, kate, i'm wondering about all those mom and pop investors who are often sitting on the sidelines feeling this market is not a level playing field. when you hear about just another insider trading case, i would imagine that it is a real blow to investor confidence for the retail investor. right? >> well, mandy, that's very much the point that federal prosecutors and the s.e.c.'s head of enforcement were trying to make the other day when announcing this case. they talked a lot about the deterrent effect of this case or that they hoped it would have. they say, if you think you can cheat and get away with it, you have another thing coming.

hoping your phones aren't tapped is not the solution. there was sort of a salacious chapter to an earlier iteration of this probe in which one of the people who eventually pled guilty to charges of insider trading, a former sac employee, destroyed a hard drive with a pair of pliers and dropped the pieces off in a trash dump in hopes of separating itself from some of the physical evidence. >> how much longer does this go on, kate? i mean you could make a whole career of following federal prosecutors going after steve cohen and sac and at what point do they -- either they come up with something or they don't. but will there come a time when they finally say, okay, we give up? >> i really don't know, bill. it feels at this point it's been years and it could continue to be years. sac continues to perform which is remarkable. at the same time, these legal issues aren't going away. if anything, the government prosecutors seem to be coming closer to cohen with every step. we don't know what kind of evidence they have on him. but they're certainly trying. so it is clearly become a cause

for the district attorney in manhattan and they focus on insider trading in a big way. >> kate kelly work being the story there, thanks. coming back with the closing countdown on this holiday shortened day. the markets about to close and with a pretty good rally. >> a black friday rally is giving investors an early holiday present. can it carry over into next week with still a lot of uncertainty hanging over the markets. and one energy expert says consumers could get another gift in the new year. he's predicting a plunge in oil prices. we can only hope. you're watching cnbc, first in business worldwide. [ male announcer ] if you suffer from heartburn 2 or more days a week, why use temporary treatments when you can prevent the acid that's causing it with prevacid24hr. with one pill prevacid24hr works at the source to prevent the acid that causes frequent heartburn all day and all night. and with new prevacid24hr perks,

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